Paid BART to You

My father turns 65 this coming Saturday, and he was in town this past weekend for a visit. It seemed the ideal chance for an early birthday kickoff celebration so I made a cake (yellow cake with chocolate frosting) and surprised him with it when they arrived on Saturday afternoon.*

After dinner, I handed the alphabet candles (spelling Happy Birthday, one candle per letter) to Eric to put in the cake and went off to do something (I have no idea what). When I came back, my father had somehow been put in charge of decorating his own cake and was, apparently, in an anagramatic mood. He proudly displayed his handiwork, a reference no doubt to the fact that they had come to our place via BART that day.


So of course we all sang "Paid BART to you, Paid BART to you, Paid BART Paid BART, Paid BART to you."

My father was very pleased.


*I also surprised all of us by accidentally dropping it on the floor. Luckily, the 5 second rule applies to birthday cakes so we quickly scooped it up and declared it no worse than before. This prompted Mykael to tell the story of a Thanksgiving long ago when her grandmother proudly marched a meticulously prepared roasted turkey from the kitchen into the dining room only to have the whole thing slide off the tray and onto the floor. "No matter," she said coolly. "I've got another one just like it in the kitchen." She then gracefully took the getaway bird back in the kitchen for take 2.

Winner

For a little fun at our recent offsite, my firm held an "Awkward Photo" contest. Being pretty competitive, I was quick to send in my triptych submission:

In the photo on the left I am proudly showing off a few Christmas presents: my new map of the world jacket and my new t-shirt which reads: "I love my cat and the feline is mutual". I was totally awesome.

In the middle photo I am wearing my very special horse sweater. As you can see, each horse has hairy mane which goes down the length of the arm. What you probably can't tell from the photo is that it was on a velcro strip so that you could, if you wanted to, put the white mane on the black horse and vice versa. It was quite a versatile sweater, you see.

I don't really know what to say about the picture on the right other than that I seem to be holding up my nightgown to show off my slippers, as though that was part of the outfit? It's unclear.

Would you be surprised if I told you the middle picture was the Grand Prize Winner of the whole contest? It's true. The Applause-o-meter, my colleague Leslie, registered the highest applause for my photo (out of three finalists) so I was the winner! Then as the winner I got a round of applause, and I stood up to graciously accept the prize* and bask in my glory and/or shame or confused mix thereof (so it was actually exactly like most of my childhood).


*The prize was, in fact, the round of applause.

Evolution

Came in today to some new faces in my herd of balloons. Literally.

I work with great people.

Cleaning Lady Macbeth

We had a cleaning lady come over last week to do the kind of deep cleaning that is really best outsourced and she did an extremely thorough job.

My mother was here this past weekend and on Saturday she was making a pumpkin pie.

"I don't know how to use your oven," she called to me from the kitchen.

"Just turn the knob to the temperature you want," I called, rolling my eyes like the salty teenager I still sometimes become when my mother is around.

"But how do you know the temperatures?" she insisted, sounding truly at a loss.

I finally went to show her how to turn the numbered knob and discovered that she had a very real reason to be confused: the oven knob had been scrubbed so clean that all of the numbers indicating the temperature points were gone. The knob was blank.

We thought we could still maybe see the bottoms of two zeroes that was probably where 400 degrees had been, so we took a Sharpie and wrote in some temps where we thought they belonged.

We have since burned the pumpkin pie and a lasagna, so I think we need to recalibrate.

Balloon farm

For our Halloween party last week, my colleagues blew up about 50 balloons and when I came to work on Monday morning they were all in my office. Look - there they are:

As you would expect, this has prompted a new ritual when people come to meet with me in my office: they stand facing the wall or corner and do a little jig, kicking their legs straight out while keeping their hands more or less at their sides. Like a drunk Michael Flatley. Sometimes they make gleeful squawking or chirping noises too.

I like this ritual a lot and I want to keep it going as long as I can. As these balloons start to deflate (which, as an aside, they show no signs of doing even a week later), I am going to secretly blow up new balloons and replace the shrivelly ones. I think this is going to work. I am now an undercover balloon farmer.

Happy Halloween!

Per our annual Halloween tradition, Eric and I carved up some pumpkins this year.

Can you guess who did which one? I'll give you a hint: mine is the better one.

Yankee Doodle went to the symphony

Eric and I went to the symphony last night to hear Joshua Bell (and to try to get the Movers of Arabia out of our heads).

He was wonderful!

He was called back to the stage five times by the thunderous applause and finally agreed to do an encore. He said nothing - just raised his violin and launched into a piece in his typical highly animated fashion. Maybe a minute into his emotional performance it became clear: he was playing Yankee Doodle.*

This elaborate and at times gut-wrenchingly heartfelt rendition of Yankee Doodle went on for several minutes and afterward people erupted into even more thunderous applause; these people simply could not clap loud enough for Joshua Bell. I had the feeling that the audience sort of wanted to devour him whole. I didn't stick around for the special CD signing afterwards but I hope they had excellent security or Joshua's untucked black dress shirt was likely shredded from his "concert violinist bad boy" body before he was even fully seated in his chair.

"You know, he's making fun of us," Eric commented.

Yep. And we love it.


*This actually happens to be one of the songs that Emerson's musical "laptop" plays as well so, as it turned out, even the symphony was not a safe escape from horrible-baby-music-land.

In your head

Eric and I both regularly now sing the alphabet song in Spanish.

We do the numbers 1-10 as well.

It would be funny if it weren't so hard to stop.

I blame all these singing musical toys that Emerson plays with. These little ditties get played hundreds of times a day and they are all of them completely infectious.

This little sing 'n play guitar plays a song that both Eric and I sing almost constantly now: The Movers of Arabia. It's very catchy! And nonsensical. The lyrics are: "We are the movers of Arabia!" over and over. What does that mean? I have no idea! But I suspect that this toy might actually be a secret Defense Department project to start programming young minds early on the need for democratic reform in the Middle East.

Spider-Goats

Can't help myself - check out these goats who have climbed up a 160 foot dam wall on the Italian-Swiss border. Definitely scroll down to see the last picture of the goats on the dam wall that they have cleverly prevented me from copying and reposting here.

Have a great weekend!

Just saying

You know how, sometimes, if you are eating muesli that also has some larger multigrain flakes in it, when you are pouring the milk into it the milk hits the concave part of the flake and gets ski-jumped out of the bowl onto the counter, not just some of the milk but like ALL of the milk? Dude! Come on!

Of dogs and babies

This morning we walked 5k in Golden Gate Park to support local midwives and provide greater access to midwives for low income women. It was a neat little $50 walk in the park and got us up and out much earlier than usual, which was nice in that it made the weekend feel longer.

As we were walking through the park to the event we (of course) passed by a homeless man just waking up to start the day. We were maybe five yards past him when he suddenly yelled out, loudly, "Lasagna!"

Was this some new Italian expletive that I have been unaware of?

After a moment a dog trotted out of the bushes and went over to the man.

Not an expletive - just an awesome dog name.

Grace and grays

Over the last year and a bit I have learned to love my natural hair color (inspired by my desire to avoid the chemicals used to give my hair its 'natural' blonde highlights).

I thought it might be hard to get used to being a non-blond, and I was definitely worried that I would see a decrease in how much fun I have. But it turned out to be great! And I welcomed my natural hair color gracefully.

And then about five minutes later I made a very rude discovery: a gray hair. Maybe even more than one. I'm not telling.

You might point out that it is entirely possible that the gray hairs have been there all along and I just didn't see them because I was highlighting my hair. I would ask you to mind your own business and let me tell the story my way. This is a recent development that requires further consideration. I only have so much gracefulness to go around.

Others

I went to a BCG alumni event last night and chatted with my Wharton classmate and former BCG colleague Matt Kropp. It emerged through conversation that he has a son named...Emerson. I remarked on his good taste in names.

Matt shared with me a funny discovery he recently made when he posted a video of his 7 year old son Emerson Kropp on youtube: there's another Emerson Kropp out there. And the other one is 13 years old and one of three brothers comprising the boy band Kropp Circle. (The other brothers are Remington and Sebastian, so apparently their parents has uneven taste in names.)

My question: does this help or hurt Emerson's chances of being in a hugely successful boy band?

We may need to wait and see how well his hair grows out and if he eventually stops drooling so much.

Just like college

Saturday night Eric and I went out on a date while my mom stayed with Emerson at our place. Eric had planned a sophisticated evening out for us the main event of which was: a magic show.

We went to dinner beforehand and got to the magic show venue (a hotel meeting room with a make-shift curtain backdrop) and noticed a crowd gathered across the street. It turned out to be a performance art piece that, like every theater performance my entire time at Brown, involved a naked woman.

In this case, the art was sort of happening to her: she stood there while the "artists" took objects off of a wall display and used them on her. One person brushed her hair. Someone else painted things on her body. Another fellow wrapped her in saran wrap. Then someone cut the saran wrap off of her. And then someone squeezed a lemon on her. And so on like that.

Hmmm. I wished that one of the things on the wall was an oversized t-shirt. Or a hug. You know - things she could have actually used. But this was art and the point, whatever it was, had to be made.

So we went into the magic show! The audience was us and about 9 other people: a few other couples on dates, a nine year old boy and his parents, and an older couple that may have been German.

We had a wonderful time in spite of the completely amateurish performance. It might have been fun to guess how they were doing the tricks if it hadn't been so obvious. There were two magicians and the first one was so nervous his hands were shaking through all his card tricks. The second magician at least had a big wonderful showman persona so even though his tricks were flimsy he was great fun to watch.

When we emerged from the magic show, the "art project" across the street was continuing: her hair was now covered in vaseline and someone had lit a candle in front of her and was using aerosol deodorant to make little fireballs in front of her (not at her).

We watched for a few minutes because it was impossible not to. Then we wandered over to Union Square where, of course, a small group of guerrilla film-makers was shooting a music video. Six young women in tight black clothes and boots (three identical-looking blondes and three identical-looking brunettes) strutted around with bright red umbrellas. To capture the action smoothly the camera dude was being pushed around in a wheelchair.

Apparently the video is for the upcoming smash hit: "Marco Polo."

Then it was time to ride our bikes home.

Play Opera!

Eric and I went with our friend Julie to see Opera at the Ballpark on Friday. Julie's husband Adam stayed at our place with the Little E who was asleep. It was a deliciously warm evening and we walked from our place to the ballpark along the water, my favorite route and the first part of my commute (via bicycle).

This is the fifth time (I think) that they have done the Opera at the Ballpark simulcast where the opera is played on the ballpark scoreboard, complete with subtitles. They bring in supplemental speakers which help with sound quality and while it is still clearly a ballpark and not an opera house, it sounds pretty good.

We sat next to a couple of older women who would have looked right at home in the actual opera house except that they were eagerly scarfing down ballpark hot dogs and drinking beers.

As we were walking in I joked that they should play the Star-Spangled Banner before the start of the opera.

Around 7:50pm, they announced that some woman who had won a contest would be leading the crowd of 30,000 (yes! 30,000!) in the national anthem.

And I thought I was being funny.

I was therefore not at all surprised when during intermission a cartoony opera mascot strutted out to the pitcher's mound to lead the crowd in Take Me Out To The Opera House ("... I don't care if it's Wagner or Strauss...")

It was all simply delightful.

It doesn't go without saying

I am meeting in person with a bigwig at an apparel company tomorrow and had a phone call this morning with the head of my company to prepare for it.

Toward the end of the call he paused and then said: "And Ellie - dress fashionably."

I waited for him to add "as you always do" but he seemed to have finished his thought.

It was a great party!

Here's just a flavor of what a great time we had in August.

They got us

I was delighted to discover yesterday that the urban guerilla knitters had targeted our neighborhood. As I was walking Emerson to the park I saw it on the bike rack on our corner, outside the Connecticut Yankee:

Guerilla knitting is an international phenomenon where sneaky knitters will drop "yarn bombs" in urban areas.

For example, on lightposts, signposts, unsuspecting trees, statues and many, many bike racks.

As far as I know, they haven't tried it on an unconscious homeless guy yet.

Games people play

We spent this past weekend with 12 other people in a big house on the Russian River, about two hours north of San Francisco. When I write it like that it sounds like maybe we were on a reality TV show but it was just a fun weekend with friends. As least that's what I've been led to believe.

The house backed right onto the river and had a yard that may have been originally designed as the worlds most challenging mini-golf course. We discovered this while playing Bocce ball - a new game for me and one I liked very much. For those people like me who don't get out much and so are new to Bocce it is sort of like Curling but on grass instead of ice, with balls instead of whatever those curling things are and without the funny manic sweeping.

The balls are marble and really heavy and the yard which, at a glance was more or less flat, turned out to be a nightmare for novice Bocce-ers and an unexpected challenge to the more experienced players. You would gently roll a big ball toward the white target ball and just as it got close it would suddenly change direction, pick up speed and end up under a bush. I almost think the terrain was somehow haunted the behavior of the balls was so inexplicable.*

The good news was that after we had tired of physics-defying Bocce, people were up for playing a whole bunch of other games. I personally LOVE playing games and this group of 12 other fervent game players was amazing - I learned and became obsessed with winning a bunch of new games that I hadn't even known existed. For example, a board game from Europe called Jamaica which involves pirates, treasure and small plastic ships; and Bananagrams - like Scrabble but without the board and without the agonizing waits between your turn.


*In a conversation about the supernatural at one point the idea came up that there should be a Oiuja board iPhone app. There are three. And there's also a Magic 8 Ball app that I might have to get too.

Thank you Random Lady

Dear Random Lady,

I want to thank you for the adorable and appropriately sized socks for Emerson. His feet are toasty warm all the time now. And no one at the grocery store or anywhere else has critiqued my mothering since we got them. Thank you!

Love,
Ellie (& Emerson)

Back to work

Sitting at my desk yesterday afternoon, I got this email from a colleague/friend who lives in our neighborhood and has a baby two months younger than Emerson.

"Hey Working Lady! I ran into a certain Emerson at the library today! Was happy as a clam, sucking away at his bottle."

(She didn't mention that he was there with his new daytime caretaker Karina but I think it is safe to assume that he was.)

I was glad, and not really surprised, to hear that Emerson seemed happy. I choose to see it as a good thing that he doesn't seem to need me around to be perfectly content.

But I do miss him very much as I sit here at this silly desk doing grown-up things like earning a paycheck and helping businesses be more environmentally sustainable.

Irony of the day: I suspect I will blog more consistently now since blogging is less fun than hanging out with Emerson but more fun than working (and also easier to do when you are already sitting at a computer).

Honey!

One of the best ways to not think about how your first day back at work is tomorrow is to harvest the honey from your beehives. So that's what Eric and I did last night. Eric tells the story on his blog in two parts: stealing the honey from the bees and then getting it ready to put in jars.

Thank you beeeeeeees!

Boo

I go back to work Thursday. This makes me quite glum. I actually had a half-dream-half-awake monologue this morning in which I wrote a blog about feeling glum and how the thing about the word "glum" is that if you want to add emphasis to it you can't capitalize it because GLUM is actually less glum, not more glum. Same problem with italics - glum is less glum than just plain glum. So when you write glum, that is actually the glummest way to write it.

Guess who had a great honeymoon

Getting married, part two

Eric, Emerson and I are boarding a plane to Chicago today and hence the festivities will begin! Our Big Party to celebrate our wedding last October is on Saturday night with a wonderful group of friends and family. This will be followed by what we have dubbed our "white trash honeymoon": a week-long family RV adventure through Michigan.

As before any major life event, yesterday we did a brewery tour: this time it was Anchor Steam Brewery. The brewery is just a few blocks from our house and we can often smell them brewing up that delicious beer! We learned that Steam beer is beer that is cooled in big open vats on the brewery rooftop when refrigeration is not available. We also learned that, for a lot of good reasons, they no longer do it that way.

Our tour guide Kevin also told us a random story, as part of the tour, about a Polish guy who works there in the keg room. He was a professional boxer in Poland and was sitting in his living room one day when the doorknob started to turn - someone was going to break in! Our hero just sat in his chair and warned the potential intruder: "Easy to get in, very difficult to get out."

Jump

I took the opportunity this past weekend at Arroyo Seco to jump off a cliff.

I scream and wave my arms and legs the whole way down.

Here's your bee-lover

To celebrate my birthday, Eric and I and Emerson and some friends went out camping for a few days this past weekend. We went to a spot called Arroyo Seco about 150 miles south of San Francisco on 101 South, which means it is about 5 hours away due to traffic except between 1 and 4am.

We were dismayed upon arrival to see a note posted advising us that the drinking water had failed a quality test and was no long considered safely drinkable. They had found "coliform," a fecal bacteria that we imagined to be shaped like tiny cauliflower, in the water.

Always the heroes, Eric and our friend Adam went to get drinking water on Saturday night at the closest general store. It is important that you know that Eric was wearing his "I (heart) Bees" t-shirt on this outing to appreciate the exchange they had with the guy dressed like a cowboy who was hanging out commentating the evening at the store.

"Here's your bee-lover," he started as Eric reached the check-out.

"Why are you buying water?" he wanted to know. Eric explained that there was fecal bacteria in the water at the campsite.

"There's shit in the water!?" he exclaimed, "there's shit in ALL water - welcome to Earth!"

A parental moment

Eric and I went for brunch with friends recently. Pancakes, eggs, yum! Emerson, clever boy that he is, managed to get his hand into the little syrup pitcher and then pour the whole thing on himself and me. Eric and I did the obvious parental instinct thing: we tried to get his syrup-covered hands into our mouths before he could get them into his.

It was a lot of syrup! I was going to try to at least get a little pancake in my mouth to soak it up but then thought better of it.

Torture

For 22 of the last 30 days I have gone to an exercise class that is generally known as The Bar Method but which I like to refer to as Torture because I like to call things what they are.

Inspired by ballet*, this exercise class occurs in a carpeted studio with a mirrored wall and a bar. Exercises include standing on the balls of your feet with your heels lifted all the way up and then "sitting down" into it and then lifting up an inch and down an inch. Try it. If you're doing it right your legs will start to shake uncontrollably after about 12 seconds.

I don't see this becoming a lifestyle for me but I think it has served its purpose. At our Big Party, which is right around the corner, I will know that I made my best effort to look awesome.

*Which I believe is French for "beautiful torture"

Emerson's card

Last night our friends Jamaica, Nelson, Sarah and Rob came over to supervise my turning 32. The celebration in my honor included pizza, wine and a rousing round of a board game called Apples to Apples.

In this game each person is dealt a hand of seven "noun cards" - these can be literally anything from socks to Oprah Winfrey to the 1812 Overture - to play through the course of the game. Each round starts with the round leader drawing a green "adjective" card from the pile (hopeless, joyous, spooky, ridiculous, shallow, etc) and then each person picks the card from their hand that best represents that adjective and plays it anonymously. The leader picks the card that they like best and that person gets the green card.

To win, the key is to play the card that you think the person choosing the card will choose as the best - which may not necessarily be the most literal interpretation. The person who gets six green cards first wins the game.

We added in a special twist to the way that we played on Thursday: in each round, Eric picked a random noun card from the pile and played it with the others. This was "Emerson's card." We were curious to see how Emerson (a random card) was going to do in this game against our hand-selected plays.

He almost won.

Sometimes it was because his answers were irresistably ironic (Socks for Pathetic); other times they were eerily spot-on (John Philip Sousa for Patriotic). Of the twenty or so rounds we played, he got four cards before I got to six and won. (It was my birthday, after all.)

The other weird thing that happened was the adjective card "Shiny" kept surfacing as the card to play next. Each time, the person who drew it would stick it back in the deck and then suddenly the next person would draw "Shiny" again. Cree-py!

And now I am 32 years old.

Happy birthday to me

Today is my 32nd birthday. What a year! Last year on my birthday I was feeling nauseated and crying on and off all day so this year's birthday is almost guaranteed to be better.

I woke up today wondering if I will ever want to have plastic surgery. I don't ever want to want to have it but I am starting to kind of understand how one could find it seductive. I think it is great fun to get older but I think it is hard, especially for women, to look older. The fact that plastic surgery generally ends up making you look scary and sad in anything but the most gentle and flattering lighting will probably be enough to dissuade me should my intention to age gracefully waver.

In other news: tonight I will eat a chocolate cupcake. Yum.

My brother Andrew

Andrew is leaving Chicago this week to go to grad school in Pittsburgh. He's very excited to be starting school. He's been glad to have help from my dad and Mykael getting some furnishings for his new place.

None of this explains why he is sitting at a desk in the middle of a yard in a recent photo sent from my father.

A fresh perspective

A friend of Eric's from work shared a list of houseplants that are particularly good for indoor air quality. We've had two houseplants for a while now - an aloe vera named Mr. T and a skinny-leafed teeny tree who we call Rev. Jesse Jackson (or just "The Reverend") - and they are both thriving. With our solid track record and this impetus we thought perhaps it was time for them to have some friends.

When Barbara was in town last week she and I took Emerson and went to a plant store called the Plant Warehouse which had good reviews on Yelp. It was described as "jungly" inside which I did not but should have interpreted to mean "not stroller friendly." They also have free wine. I'm new to plant shopping but I sense this is not typical. As far as I could tell the place was not also a spa.

With help from the friendly staff we came home with four new plants to freshen our air:

• "Mother-in-law's Tongue" - which looks sharp and potentially injurious. It is a dramatic-looking plant and I like the severity of it (there are few houseplants I would describe as "severe" so I guess that makes it stand out
• Janet Craig - weird that this is the name of a plant; it seems more like a name I would give to a plant. It is a cheerful friend
• Mums - we got dark red ones that seem to be enjoying living next to the heater
• Gerber Daisies - who doesn't love Gerber daisies? We got a small little plant that just has three flowers on it right now. They started wilting and leaning over so I watered them and propped them up with the help of a pencil. They are perkier now.

I have no idea if the air is fresher but it is definitely prettier having some greens in here.

The passage of time

It was either a few minutes ago or several years ago that it was March. I have no idea.

Spending all of one's time with a baby is an exercise in staying present in the moment. There is only right now - this morning and this evening are thoroughly irrelevant. We are doing things one diaper at a time in this house.

And yet sometimes my mind races ahead to when Emerson will be learning to ride a bike or getting his first cell phone. And it is crazy to me that I am not sure which of those will happen first.

Right now, though, we are savoring Emerson at four months: so curious and happy, discovering his hands, smiling and laughing, pure sweetness. What a delicious baby he is.

Things people say to people with babies

Having a baby with you in public seems to be the equivalent of wearing a sign that says: "Tell me what you think."

Here are a few recent favorites:

(from an older hispanic woman in the grocery store)
"Be careful - there are a lot of baby stealers out there!" and in the next breath: "This boy will be president of the United States someday!"

(from an older African American on the bus who was eating a huge sticky cinnamon bun with both hands)
"Hold him all the time. You can't spoil them when they're so little." And a little later. "Do you have a napkin?" [I produce one for him.] "I knew you would!"

(from a 30-something professionally dressed woman with short blond curly hair with a distraught look on her face, at about 3pm)
"If you're taking BART today - DON'T! They said they're announcing the verdict by 4:30pm today." (She then ran down the BART station steps. Apparently she was not the only one with this idea.)

People I don't know now suddenly know my name: Mom. As in: "Hey Mom! Are you a registered voter in San Francisco?"

But you know what? As annoying as this can be, when I am out without Emerson, I look around at everyone around me and think to myself "No one here knows that I have a baby." Which kind of makes me want to have a sign that says that I do.

Neighborhood explorations: The Library

I love our new neighborhood, Potrero Hill, for many reasons: Goat Hill Pizza, we're nearby friends, we have nice, if windy, parks nearby, Goat Hill Pizzza, you can actually park on the street pretty easily, the homeless people don't seem to know it exists, Goat Hill Pizza, and we are spared the majority of the fog. It's great!

My newest reason for loving Potrero Hill is the library. I was a big fan of the Mission Bay branch of the public library in our old neighborhood. Let me explain to you why I love the Potrero Hill branch even more:

See? It's delightful.

One recent afternoon I headed up there to return some beekeeping books and Emerson was snoozing in his carseat, as he so likes to do. I sat for a bit and read about bees while sneaking peeks at the gorgeous view expanding out before me. I didn't even have to keep ordering drinks to justify keeping the table: I could just sit there.

After not too long Emerson woke up and was hungry. I've gotten pretty good at breastfeeding discreetly in public* so I figured I would breastfeed with a view.

What I wasn't counting on was Emerson's enthusiasm that particular feeding: he growled, snorted, slurped and moaned loudly the whole time he was eating, which was probably 15 minutes. It was adorable and/or really disruptive to people who seemed to think they were in a library. Oh wait.

So I got a couple of nasty looks. With a view.

*No I haven't. But in this case I was actually pretty good.

A whole lotta love party

This past weekend I went to what I think was the best wedding I have ever been to. I rang a gong twice during the ceremony, which was awesome but would not all by itself have made this such an amazing wedding.

This was not originally going to be a wedding in the legal sense - it was being called a Love Party and was conceived as a commitment ceremony punctuating a fabulous weekend of fun. The week before the event Jamaica and Nelson (the starring couple) started feeling matrimonial and decided they would indeed go all the way. They went to City Hall and got themselves a marriage license.*

There were many, many highlights of the weekend. Here are just a few:

• First, the most obvious one: me gonging to open and close a short silent meditation, after a dramatic reading of Jon Kabat Zinn's "Wherever you go, there you are." I had one friend tell me afterwards that he thought the second gong was much better than the first one. They were both good, he insisted, but the second one was really great.
• I must say, the rest of the ceremony was pretty awesome, too. It was meaningful and moving without being too long, for which I doubly salute them. I won't go into great detail but you should know that it included a pagan handfasting ceremony, a sake ceremony, their own love stories for one another, a sanscrit chant and a rocking rendition of Cat Stevens' "Peace Train" which Eric played on guitar while Nelson's best man Campbell sang, with backup support from Nonoko and me**
• Square dancing to the music of the Dalton Mountain Gang, an awesome bluegrass band that was surprisingly willing to do requests, including a handful of songs they may or may not have actually known. Last time I went square dancing I was about eight months pregnant and all the bouncing got to be, well, uncomfortable. This time was pure unqualified fun.
• Seeing happiness everywhere, most importantly in the faces of Jamaica ans Nelson.

Love totally rules.


*The accompanying family planning literature probably feels more relevant when you aren't already pregnant, as in my case with Eric.
**My gonging was better than my singing, truth be told

So there I was, again

Two years ago today I started this blog.

In that inaugural post, I reflected on how wacky, unexpected and fun my life was at that moment.

Well, I am happy to report that today my life is as wacky, unexpected and fun as it was then.

Perhaps even more so.

Dancing babies

Apparently, babies love to move to a beat. They can't help themselves. And their parents can't help but film them and put them on the internet.



See? And here's another. I love the comment on this Brazilian baby video: "When you've done this as a baby, it don't matter what you do. You can't fail life anymore"




And if youtube videos aren't proof enough for you: scientists have even studied it, further evidence that there is someone willing to fund almost any study.

Pick your own fruit - check

We took Emerson fruit picking this weekend. It is something I've wanted to do for a while. Eric insisted that if it were that much fun it wouldn't be something only desperate migrant workers are willing to do. I did point out that they usually work for less than minimum wage - perhaps because they enjoyed it so much? OK, probably not.

We drove a little over an hour outside of San Francisco to get to the fruit and it was h-o-t out, which I love. The fruit on offer was apricots, nectarines and peaches. The nectarines and peaches were ready to pick but not quite ready to eat. The apricots, on the other hand, had the double bonus of being ready to eat and being an easy two bites. Yum!

For me, this experience gave new meaning to "low-hanging fruit," a term which I have used many times as a consultant rather than as a fruit-picker. For the record, it has significantly more meaning as a fruit-picker. Especially when picking with people who are taller than you are.

The haul (half of it actually- we had two boxes):

What do you do with 30+ pounds of ripe fruit? Make some* jam!

*way too much

Bravo

Eric and I once again found ourselves at the symphony this week, enjoying some classical tunes. It was an all Berlioz program, including the Roman Carnival which evoked for me the scene in Mary Poppins at the end of "Spoonful of Sugar" when the toys and closet doors are all going crazy. It could easily have been the soundtrack for the scene. I loved it.

The piece that ended the evening was another rousing number and towards the end of it Eric pointed out to me a girl of about seven who was in one of the seats above and behind the stage. She was sitting on her father's lap and "guest conducting": waving her arms wildly with a huge grin on her face. She was having a fabulous time and putting on an excellent show. We watched her, grins spilling across our faces, for the duration of the show.

Living like we're leaving

Eric and I are not planning on leaving San Francisco any time soon. But someday we might choose or be forced by the ravages of runaway climate change to move somewhere else, and that is when we will realize that there is a ton of stuff to do here that we have never done, and we don't have time to do it all before we leave.

Or not!

We've made a list of a bunch of things that might be fun to do here that we haven't yet done and we're going to do them. (See what happens when you sell your TV? You have to get creative.)

Here's our current list, which should keep us busy for the next few months (in addition to raising a child):

• Anchor Brewery Tour
• Golden Gate Fields for horse racing
• Infineon for car racing
• Weekend getaway in Healdsburg, with canoeing on the Russian River
• Go to the water park near San Jose
• "Pick your own" organic fruit at a nearby farm
• Dolores Park movie night
• Walking tours of different neighborhoods - "City Guide" tours
• Alcatraz
• Make our own cheese
• Go see a movie at the drive-in movie theatre in the east bay
• Visit the Lavender Bee Farm
• Go to a 49ers game
• Take Emerson to a Giants game and an Oakland A's game
• Play at Lake Tahoe in the summer
• Get spooked at the Winchester Mystery House
• Long weekend trip(s) to Big Sur, Carmel, Monterrey
• Go see Teatro Zinzanni
• Go see Beach Blanket Babylon
• Check out the Seward Street Slides
• See all of the beaches in the bay area - preferably on nice days
• Take our bikes out of the city and go for a ride with Emerson
• Go camping at Arroyo Seco
• Mini golf
• Kayaking on the channel

Back on the bike

Several weeks ago, Eric agreed to watch Emerson while I went to a yoga class. This was exciting! But to get to the class I had to ride my bike. I was less excited about this than I would have anticipated.

It has been many months since I have been on my bike due to the whole pregnancy and giving birth and having a newborn thing. Long enough that my bike had to be unearthed from the back of the garage and revived from a serious bike coma. We dusted it off, filled up the tires and greased up the chain, which had gotten a bit rusty (whoops). As I wheeled it out to the street, I noticed the back wheel had gotten slightly warped, probably from having the lock hanging on it for almost a year.

I hopped on and pedaled off to yoga, ignoring the regular soft jolt as the warped part of my wheel rubbed against the brake.

It all came right back to me, just like riding a bike.

Meet the Droogies

On Saturday, Eric took Emerson and me to meet our two beehives, also known as "the droogies." They live in the Bee Yard on Stanford's campus and they are busy making honey for us.

There comes a moment when one is wrapping one's not-yet-three-months-old son in mosquito netting in his carseat to take him to see hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of bees, when one questions one's parental judgment. Then the moment passes and one proceeds with one's mosquito-net-wrapped son into the Bee Yard.

Eric lit the smoker and we walked through the 40 or so hives to get back to our two. It was spectacularly neat: there they were! The Droogies. At the entrances of the hives we could see lots of activity, with bees flying out to forage for nectar and being checked by the guard bees when they tried to come back in.

We examined both hives, which meant that we opened them up and pulled out the different frames. Droogie 1 is going gangbusters - lots of brood (a sign that the hive is healthy) and lots of capped honey. Droogie 2 is full of slacker bees and is not doing so well. Perhaps this will present us with the learning opportunity of what to do when things go wrong with your hives. Eric got some great photos which you can see on his post on this same topic.

Emerson slept the whole time so he will probably not remember his first visit to the droogies. (And I'm not sure he could have seen very well through all that mosquito netting even if he had been awake.)

Given the cooler climate this year, the slightly late start with the hives and who knows what else, this year may not be a huge honey harvest but we sure are enjoying keeping some bees!

A night out

On Saturday night, Eric and I met some friends from out of town for dinner at a local brewpub, Thirsty Bear. Across the street from Thirsty Bear is the Gold Club, which is a strip club.

We had Emerson with us, as we almost always do, and I was curious if an adorable, well-behaved baby would be allowed into the strip club.* The question is purely academic, of course, but I was curious to know the answer. And it was easy to find out.

"Could we bring him in?" I asked the bouncers standing out in front of the club.

"Uh....no," they responded.

So there you have it. Babies are not welcome in strip clubs.


*For the breast-fed babe, I suppose this would feel like being at some sort of dancing buffet?

Bee happy*

The birth of our son Emerson this past March was only one of two major new beginnings for our family. The other, which got somewhat overshadowed but is still a big deal, was the launch of our two beehives! Eric set them up down at Stanford in a special bee yard and has been telling their tale in his new blog The Bee Bungalow. I highly recommend. If only honey could be transmitted over the internet...

We are going to go down there tomorrow so that I can meet the bees in person and check out the hives. I am so excited! I promise a full report.


*When one's attention is focused on bees, it becomes clear that the entire English language was created just to provide endless bee puns for beekeepers.

It was good while it lasted

Eric and I, at least since we have been together, have not been TV people. We've never had one or really felt the need for one, other than to watch certain sporting events. This problem is handily solved by going to sports bars.

Until you have a newborn baby right before the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

We bought an old tube TV off Craigslist for $30 (the manual boasted that it was "Y2K Ready") for the express and exclusive purpose of watching the Stanley Cup playoffs. The deal was: we would get a TV for the playoffs and then sell it as soon as the Cup had been won.

While we had the TV, we were tempted to take advantage, naturally, of some of the other programming. We may have watched a few episodes of Law and Order, or a movie or two on On Demand; and it is possible that Eric watched several (many?) hours of crab fishing.

And while I was absolutely thrilled when the Hawks won last week, I will admit it was bittersweet.

We sold the TV last night. For $40.

First date

Eric and I had our first baby-less date last Thursday. We are helping the symphony finish out the season, having swapped our tickets for the last performances of the season.

We got dressed up. I wore the dress I was wearing the very first time I met Eric* which is loose with a tie around the waist to give it shape. It was as flattering a dress as a two months postpartum woman could hope for. I dressed it up with three inch black patent leather heels that I need to relearn how to walk in. Eric wore nice slacks and a sharp dress shirt. We looked elegant.

We left Emerson with Sarah, her sister Liz and Rob. Three adults to two babies seemed like fair odds for Emerson's first evening without at least one of his parents.

The symphony menu that night included Wagner, Berg, and a Beethoven violin concerto. Before it started we made a bet as to how much the soprano for the Berg would weigh: I took under 170 lbs**, Eric took over. Eric won unambiguously.

"What do you think?" Eric whispered to me after the first movement of the Berg piece, a modern, somewhat atonal work.

"I think they should be just about tuned up." I responded. It was not my favorite.

During intermission, I snagged a table and Eric got us celebratory drinks. He ordered two glasses of port, stumping the rookie bartender who, after looking everywhere for glasses and then everywhere again for the port, poured two very generous glasses of port. The veteran bartender's eyes got very large when he noticed, but he let it slide.

It felt nice to be out with adults, looking elegant and making adult conversation. As the lights dimmed for the second half, Eric asked me what the violinist's name was.

"It's Anus," he heard me respond, triggering a merciless bout of church giggles. Checking the program and seeing James Ehnes listed as the soloist only seemed to make it worse.

When we got to Sarah's place to pick up Emerson, Sarah was a little sheepish.

"The only place we could get him to sleep was in his carseat," she explained as she opened the door to the guest room where the carseat was placed on the bed.

We were not surprised: we often end up doing the same thing.

*And which has also been central to a Viking Halloween costume
**Apparently I was feeling generous

Grocery store scoldings

I took Emerson with me grocery shopping today, as usual. His socks had been falling off all day so as we headed into the grocery store I took them off and left them in the car to avoid losing them in the store.

In the produce section, the first stop in my route through the store, an older Mexican woman stopped me to admire Emerson.

"Oh look at the baby!" she cooed. Then suddenly, with horror: "Bare feet! Are you cold little one?"

"He kept losing his socks..." I attempted feebly to explain. Ignoring me, she grabbed his feet with her hands.

"Oh you're freezing!* Pobrecito! Pobrecito!"

I managed to move on, but was feeling like Most Horrible Mother Ever.

I was finally fully focused on grocery shopping again several minutes later when another older woman stopped me to admire Emerson, only to recoil in horror and scold me sternly upon discovering his bare little feet.

This happened no fewer than four times. Yes, four times. During one forty minute grocery shopping trip.

As far as I can tell, this grocery trip was far more traumatic for me than it was for Emerson and his chilly little feet.


*He wasn't freezing.

San Francisco Re-Discovered

I've been doing a lot of walking lately. A lot. Walking is a thing that Emerson and I can do together that doesn't make either of us fussy, usually.

I used to think I knew San Francisco pretty well, but I've discovered all kinds of things that I had no idea existed.

For example, I discovered a lovely waterfront walkway along the channel that essentially connects right near our place to the ballpark. It's much nicer than the walk along the train tracks that I did dozens of times walking home from work while pregnant. If only I had known!

Another recent discovery is the footbridge over the highway that allows me to skip the nasty and not very stroller friendly walk under the highway. The added bonus is the unexpected views:

Gone camping

This weekend we took Emerson to the woods to attend a three day sustainability summit organized by a colleague of mine (and at which I facilitated a few sessions). You don't know what you can and can't manage with a baby until you try it, right?

The accommodations were rustic cabins, with walls that were just screens above armpit height. We were deep in the redwoods in a valley, so it was dark and chilly in spite of the hot sunny summer day happening overhead. It was even darker and chillier at night, and the screen walls didn't do much to hold in any heat.

As the only people with a baby at the conference, we presented a modest spectacle. We were alternately providing inspiration for summit attendees (after all, sustainability is about future generations and Emerson represents that well) and providing inspiration for banning children from future conferences. I got a laugh when I dripped yogurt sauce on top of Emerson's head as he sat in my lap at dinner. He was unphased.

The first night was long. Until about 3am we could hear the other conference attendees dancing, drinking and revelling around the campfire. It was cold and Emerson slept in my sleeping bag with me. He actually did pretty well though his early morning feeding ended with him giving all that milk back to me, catching me totally off guard. He's not much for the spitting up, usually. I guess all bets are off when you're camping.

We stayed most of the day Saturday but decided to skip out on a second night in the cabins. On the way home we stopped for dinner in Healdsburg, a cute wine country village and the site of Eric's proposal-with-ring almost a year ago now.

Emerson woke up and started wailing as we were cruising the main strip looking for parking. Eric saw a primo parking spot on the other side of the street and was already executing an illegal u-turn to nab it when he registered a cop watching him. Eric had successfully parked in the desired spot when the cop rolled up, lights flashing.

"Crying baby, eh?" he commented as he arrived at the driver's side window.

He must have children; he let Eric off with a warning.

Sleeping in our own bed that night felt great.

Stars and stripes

On a recent walk up the hill, we noticed an unusual number of people were gathered outside our local pizza joint, Goat Hill Pizza. They appeared to be filming something. To say that this doesn't happen very often in Potrero Hill is like saying our compost bin only has a few fruit flies in it.

I asked a large man sitting at a console with a lot of buttons and a little screen what was going on.

"We're shooting a little thing with Danny Glover," he told me nonchalantly.

And sure enough, as we walked up the block there was Danny Glover walking and talking with the director.

Not wanting to gawk, we continued walking on up the hill toward the library.

"Danny Glover got old!" I observed to Eric.

A woman, clearly part of the crew, happened to be walking by us just at that moment. She burst out laughing.

There were no stars, young or old, at the library when we got there. Only beekkeeping books. Luckily that's what we wanted.

Hawks Win!

My father maintained a photo album for me while I was growing up. Several times a year, and sometimes more often, he would have prints made from his favorite slides capturing the important milestones of my childhood.

Then in late summer of 1989, the Chicago Cubs won the National League East Championship. My photo album goes from photos of my childhood to clippings from the Chicago Tribune of the Cubs celebrating this victory. After at least five full pages of newspaper clippings, my childhood resumes with photos of me becoming increasingly awkward as I enter junior high.

So it seemed only appropriate that today we interrupt the blog to celebrate the Chicago Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup last night. In overtime. GO HAWKS!

Mom and Baby Fill in the Blank

Apart from the skirt making (which has clearly not been taking up too too much of my time) most everything I do these days is done with Emerson. This includes getting exercise.

I gave Mom and Baby Yoga a try a few weeks back. I think I would have liked it better if it wasn't trying to pretend to have anything to do with actual yoga. Given the number of babies there, at least four of them are crying at any given moment and at least half of them need to be fed at some point during the class. We did do a few yoga postures but I think I have done more yoga while waiting for the bus than we did in this class. Not that it was a bad class, I just didn't feel it delivered on what its name promised. I think it should be called Mom and Baby Play and Feeding Time With Yoga Mats In A Yoga Studio But Don't Expect Any Actual Yoga.

Today I went to Stroller Fitness for the first time. It is offered by a yoga studio but cleverly promises that no actual yoga will take place. The class meets in the lobby of the studio* and walks to a nearby park, in this case Alamo Square. This works out well as a spot for women who are trying to lose embarrassing pregnancy pounds because it is major tourist destination: it is a stop for those double decker tourist buses as well as a good proportion of all of the other tourist buses in the city. People want to see the Painted Ladies. As a bonus, on Wednesday mornings they get to see the Postpartum Ladies too. Running up and down the stairs, doing lunge squats with our strollers, doing forearm plank and push ups with our hands on the actual ground.

"Do you smell dog poo every time you go down?" Sarah asked me as we did push ups.

I can't wait to go back.


*Or, if you are running 10 minutes late like me because of ridiculous and unnecessary traffic near Van Ness, you drive straight to the park and meet them there.

Second skirt

Like so many other things in life, it turns out that if you just keep following step by step, you eventually end up with a completed and wearable skirt.

At the beach

We went down to Linda Mar beach in Pacifica on Saturday to enjoy the beautiful day and so Eric could catch a few waves.

While Eric was riding waves, I took Emerson for a walk in his stroller along a path that runs between the beach and the highway. I'm not normally an eagle eye when it comes to wildlife sightings, but I did happen to notice this little ground critter popping his head out of a hole. Check it out!



I think my favorite thing about this little guy is that it really looks like a stuffed animal on a stick that someone below ground is manipulating. However, I'm pretty sure it's not a puppet.

After our walk, Emerson and I went and hung out in the sand for a bit and waited for Eric to return.

Into the painting on the wall

One of the highlights of our east coast adventure last week was an unexpected visit to Lancaster Brewing Company. I was delighted to learn that the building in the painting I like so much that hangs over my grandmother Muz's couch in her living room was converted into a microbrewery and brewpub!

Of course, we had to go check it out.

It was pretty surreal to walk into the image I have become so familiar with through the painting. Unlike in Mary Poppins when they jump into the sidewalk chalk drawings, we didn't find ourselves singing and dancing with Dick van Dyke. But we did sample the 11 brews made on the premises including Amish Four Grain pale ale, Hop Hog IPA and a seasonal Strawberry Wheat. Not sure if I've gone soft after not drinking for so long but after just a wee sip or two I managed to spill several of them and break one glass.

We ate dinner at the brewpub as well and it was an unexpectedly delicious meal. Muz, who is 88 years old, declared her salad to be the best salad she had ever had. Really? I asked her, wondering if there was some qualification like "best salad with feta cheese eaten at a brewpub with her first great grandson" or something like that. No - "best salad" period. What a treat!

This sign, next to the brewpub parking lot, got my imagination running wild. What sort of science are they manufacturing at the Science Factory?


We'll let you know after we visit it on our next trip.

On the road, plus one

We flew east yesterday for our first trip with the little man. We learned a lot about flying with an infant, such as how infants need a boarding pass even though they don't need a ticket. We thought a couple pillows might make the flight with him more comfortable so when we boarded Eric went to ask the flight attendant at the back of the plane if we could have a pillow or two.

"No. We have no pillows in United economy," she declared in a thick French accent.

"Really? No pillows at all?" Eric wanted to be sure.

"What do you want me to do? Manufacture a pillow?" she said extremely Frenchly.

No pillows for us.

Later on, when Eric got up to go wait in the bathroom line for a while, this same flight attendant was passing through the aisle with a bottle of water and a stack of cups. She was wearing black gloves. I have no idea why. I had just started breastfeeding Emerson which for some reason provokes instantly the sensation of having been stranded in the Sahara desert for several days: there was no way I was going to let that water walk by, in spite of having no free hand with which to grab it.

"I'd like some water," I said, "but I need you to help me because I don't have a hand free." I nodded towards my occupied hands.

"I don't have a hand free!" she protested, eyebrows raised, waving the water bottle and cups.

I was clearly not going to win this argument.

Emerson was a champ and barely made a peep on the flight. The woman sharing our row was a grandmotherly woman from Berkeley who offered to help us with him if we needed it. I think she was disappointed we didn't.

Capgrossos

In the first days after Emerson arrived, I pretty much spent all my time staring at him. I mean, it is really really hard to believe that this little person has somehow miraculously been growing inside of your body and then suddenly, they are out. And you can look at them. And they have very small heads.

There was more than one moment that first week when, having looked at Emerson for several hours straight, I would turn to look at Eric or my mother and discover that their heads were huge. Way too big, really.

This photo may help explain what I mean:

Oddly, I have actually had a similar experience once before. I was minding my own business sitting in Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona when suddenly I noticed that some people walking by me had heads that were, how you say, unexpectedly large. And also made of papier mache. They turned out to be "capgrossos" which literally means "large heads" in Catalan, and which are featured, according to Catalan tradition, along with "gegants" ("giants," and also large papier-mache figures) in many festivals and parades.

My conclusion: Catalans are weird and clearly spent too much time staring at babies during critical periods shaping their culture.

Fancy

It's the little things that can make all the difference in government offices. For example, take this chandelier at the social security administration on Valencia Street. It really spruces the place right up.

My new radio

I mentioned to Eric that I was going to get a new radio because we weren't getting good enough reception in the kitchen. He said "Bah, you don't need a new one. I'll fix it."

Here's my "new" radio:

It actually does work a lot better now.

They're Here

Around 9am yesterday morning, the doorbell rang.

About 40,000 honeybees were at the door.

They were in two separate compartments of a box designed for the express purpose of carrying bees.

"Are there really live bees in there?" asked the UPS driver over the significant din of about 40,000 buzzing honeybees, looking dubiously at the labels all over the box which read "Live honeybees."

Eric gleefully signed for the bees and brought them inside. He held them up to Emerson's ear so he could hear them buzzing. It occurred to me that a box of live bees would make a great "all natural" white noise machine in the baby's room. OK maybe not.

Eric took the bees down to campus and intoduced them to their new home, the bee houses he had assembled and set up just for them.

The bee dream has been a year in the making and it is exciting to know that right now down on Stanford's campus there are thousands of bees who are doing nothing day and night but make honey for Eric and me to eat (and Emerson when he's old enough to eat honey).

My new skirt

Eric's parents came to visit Emerson (and us) last weekend and in addition to going grocery shopping, cooking dinner, hanging drapery rods, and cleaning the bathroom (and even seeming kind of glad to be doing it since it was helping), Joy taught me to sew.

If she were not such a nice person, I expect she would describe her experience of teaching me to sew as akin to teaching a kindergartner to sew: you have to say things slowly, repeat yourself way more than you think would think necessary and don't assume any sort of proficiency with scissors.

Sewing is amazing because if you do it right, you end up with clothes you can wear. This kind of blows my mind. I think it is similar to when you take city kids to a farm and show them that vegetables come from dirt. Where did I think clothes came from? I don't know. Maybe some sort of special tree that grows mostly in China.

The fruit of my labors was a tea-length turquoise linen skirt. As I wear it around, I want people to know that I made it, but not because it is obvious just by looking at it.

The blog must not die

Must...think about...something...other...than...baby...

....

Oh who am I kidding. It's just not possible right now. Or necessary, really. In fact, I learned from a therapist once that they call a mother's all-consuming focus on her child "maternal preocupation" and not experiencing it is a disorder that can threaten the well-being of the baby, especially early on. So I will take embrace this all-baby-all-the-time time and enjoy it.

But I also made a commitment to myself that this blog would not be exclusively about the baby. Surely things will happen, and I will have thoughts, that are not about the baby. Right?

The answer is yes. And I will blog about them. Starting tomorrow.

Waiting

I haven't left the house much over the last 2 weeks or so, but when I have, it has mostly been to sit in waiting rooms. Or rather, while that isn't why I have left the house, it is the thing I have spent the most time doing while out.

I think waiting rooms are what may have originally inspired the idea of purgatory. Or perhaps it goes the other way around. I'm not sure, never having been to purgatory, which is the original and which the imitation.

Today I was pleasantly surprised by the waiting room (more of a hallway really) at the Department of Vital Statistics where we went to get Emerson officially and legally born in the state of California. It was actually a much nicer place than most of the doctor's offices we've spent time sitting in lately. I was expecting grime, crazy people and an outrageous wait and was disappointed on all three counts. Not bad, City of San Francisco. Perhaps the DMV would benefit from a visit.

One doctor's office waiting room we briefly inhabited last week had a sizeable aquarium installed right in the middle of the room. Good effort, I say, though a little maintenance would go a long way. The glass looked dirty and the water was cloudy, though Eric was convinced it was just "really aerated" not actually full of grossness. Also, as far as I could tell it only had one fish in it. There may have been more in there hiding in the huge coral (maybe they're nocturnal?) but if you can't see them, they don't count.

We like our pediatrician's office because he has a teeny waiting room that you never actually wait in. He has enough exam rooms (or few enough patients, or both) that you are shown directly into one upon arrival...and then that's where they keep you waiting 35 minutes past your appointment time before you see the doctor.

Apparently you can take the room out of the waiting room, but you can't take out the waiting.

The Little Dude Is Here

I may be the only woman who, during early labor, toured both the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory and the Anheuser Busch brewery (they happen to be essentially across the street from each other, oddly enough). This was Friday, March 26th. Eric played hooky and we made a fun day of it visiting local attractions.

It wasn't until dinner when my contractions were six minutes apart that I decided to mention to Eric that I thought something might be happening. I had been worried that as soon as I said I was feeling something, the contractions would slow down or stop and I was eager to get labor going.

By the time I mentioned it at 9pm, telling Eric did nothing to slow or stop them: we were off to the races.

I don't think I was naive about how painful labor would be, I just don't think there is any way to anticipate that sort of physical experience. The good news is that it is also very difficult to remember, otherwise I think the world would have a lot more only children.

A mere 12 hours later, a little after 9am Saturday morning, Emerson was born. He was born underwater in a tub in his room and his father caught him as he emerged. It was magical.

Not more than three minutes after he was born, our doorbell rang. It was three members of the SFPD. Apparently, neighbors had called in concerned about the noise*. Our doula, who had answered the door, assured them all was well and that there had just been a birth. They left, and then came back a few minutes later for some proof that they could take with them. The doula offered them her card and the midwife's and they left.

Here's Emerson about an hour after he was born:

I've created a separate blog to show off photos of our beautiful baby boy. You can check it out here.

We've spent the last week and a half staring at him, hanging out with him, and celebrating like fools every time he squeaks, squeals, eats, sleeps or poops. It is almost impossible for me to believe that he came from inside my body. He is a total miracle and we love him very very much.

*Did I forget to mention that I screamed like a wild animal for a good portion of the pushing phase?

Puzzled

Starting last Saturday, we've been working on a jigsaw puzzle on our glass living room table. It started out looking something like this.

After a few days it was starting to take shape:


It was not long after this point that I was sure, absolutely positive, that we were missing some pieces.

And last night we put the last piece in place while watching/listening to a documentary on Abraham Lincoln. It was a sort of psycho-history which looked at how his lifelong struggle with depression was in many ways critical to him being the leader that he came to be.

The title of the puzzle is Friends in Summer.

A walk at Fort Funston

The less you do

On my walk to yoga this morning a Mexican guy pointed at me and noted to his friends that I was "gordita" (translation: "a bit fat"). I am assuming this is meant as an endearing term for pregnant women, the way Mexicans use the word for midget ("enano") to refer to children. I suppose I should just be glad he didn't call me a chalupa.

There were other things that happened this past week, too.

I went for my second ever acupuncture appointment this past Friday and the acupuncturist somehow managed to hit a blood vessel in my face. When I mentioned something didn't feel right she looked at it and got that look that you really don't ever want someone who has just stuck a needle in your face to get. She immediately grabbed a special cream which she rubbed on it and got me some ice to hold against it. In spite of these efforts, I ended up with a dramatic bruise which runs along my left smile line from the nostril to the edge of my lips. It's a nice dark black and blue, and in the right light it appears to be a shadow that makes me look like I am sneering quite emphatically. It continues to startle me every time I look in a mirror so I'm just avoiding mirrors now.

Eric and I started a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a summer scene featuring a house on a lake at sunset. This is the first time I've tried to do a jigsaw puzzle on a glass table with a patterned rug beneath it and I am enjoying the added challenge. I bought two puzzles to use as "early labor" projects when you need to do something that is engrossing but not too intellectual. I don't seem to be anywhere near early labor but we broke it out anyway. We're making good progress on it but at the same time trying not to finish it too quickly.

For St Patrick's Day I got together with a couple of girlfriends for a girls' evening adventure. We started with free pedicures at the local nail spot* and I got my toes painted a bright blue which the bottle said was called Aruba Blue but I am quite sure is actually Belvedere Blue. From there we went to dinner at a delicious crepe restaurant in the Mission with a huge photo of a sinking ship on the wall and then we went to go see a gypsy jazz band playing at a nearby bar. It was really fun music, at least partly because there was an accordian player, but the hightlight was when a guy left without paying and the bartender, who looked like a steampunk Super Mario**, leapt over the bar and chased him out the door.

And finally, more beer was brewed! I was at a baby shower for another friend using fabric markers to color a white onesie when the brewing actually occurred but I feel I played a key role in its creation nonetheless. It is a Belgian Strong Ale style beer with very authentic ingredients such as Trappist yeast and Belgian rock candy. One idea Eric had for the name (which I think he quickly regretted saying out loud) was "Monk Robe Ale" to commemorate a special chapter in his high school experience. Apparently, he decided that he wanted a robe but not a typical bathrobe - no, he wanted a monk robe, complete with a hood and a rope belt. It is my understanding that Ginger, frequent commenter here, very generously handmade it for him. He swears to me he only wore it to school a couple times. Apparently it was also the centerpiece of an Obi Wan Kibobi costume on several occasions. If a photo of Eric in said robe could be secured, I think he would have no choice but to use it on the labels for Monk Robe Ale.

This week I am moving from "relaxation" mode to "distraction" mode. If nothing else, it should make for more interesting blogging.


*They did a promotion a few weeks back offering a free pedicure to anyone who became a fan on Facebook. I can't imagine how that works out for them but I'm glad it worked out for me!

**He was wearing a shirt and tie under overalls (all neutral tones), had sideburns and a paintbrush moustache and was wearing a bowler. And when he jumped there was a "bo-ing!" sound effect.

Well Hello!

Did a whole week just go by? Huh. It would appear so.

Where did the week go? I started off last Monday in a whirl of productivity, going down my non-work to do list with great vigor. I went to prenatal yoga, I did errands, I did long-overdue chores around the house.

By Tuesday I was already starting to slow down, in spite of still having a lengthy list of things to do. I napped. I got a massage. I spent a generous amount of time sitting on the couch staring into the middle distance. (Highly recommend that, by the way.) The most productive thing I did all day was have a delicious dinner with a friend.*

Thursday I slept almost all day. Two non-sleep highlights were my very first acupuncture appointment of my life which was great but left me wanting to go sleep some more and going to a Sharks game Thursday night down in San Jose. They were playing the Nashville Predators and it was a really fun game to watch. Going into the third period the Sharks were trailing 2-4, and the final score of the game was 8-5, Sharks with the decisive victory. Yes, this was a hockey game. If you are someone who enjoys hockey, it is well worth watching the seven minutes of highlights from the game on the Sharks' website.

I'm not sure I remember anything that happened on Friday so I probably just did more of that winning sleep/unfocused staring combo until the week became the weekend.

This week? I've pulled just a few select highlights from my to do list and will see if I can get to those between naps.


*Funny moment: she and I were seated next to a table with three men who started to get interested in talking to us. Not too long into the conversation I shifted in my seat which caused one of them to notice my enormously pregnant belly. One man literally gasped. "Oh my god!" They sort of lost interest in talking to us after that.

Warm it up

For lunch today, a colleague and I went to have lunch with a mutual friend at Google. We met him at Google's San Francisco office and enjoyed the delicious gourmet (and, as always, free) lunch that Google provides.* It was great fun to eat tasty food and enjoy a fascinating discussion with my friends.

After lunch, I stopped in the bathroom before heading out to go back to the office. Upon sitting down, I was startled by how warm the seat was.

"Hmm," I thought to myself. "The person before me must have really been sitting here a while."

After another moment of consideration, it became clear to me that no human buns could warm a seat up that much. That was when I noticed the control console on the side of the stall to my left.

I don't think of myself as having lived a life of asceticism, but this was my first experience with heated toilet seats.

Nice, but I think I can live without. The buffalo wing tofu, on the other hand, I will be actively seeking out in the near future.

In other news, today was my last day at work for a while. I start my maternity leave on Monday and am excited to be able to relax and prepare for Belvedere's increasingly imminent arrival. This either means my blog is about to get a lot better or a lot worse.


*I am still thinking about the buffalo wing tofu. I was too shy to go back during lunch and get some more but I really should have. Yum!